When most people think of modular buildings, they think modular homes and mobile homes. Most people don’t know about a third element in the modular building’s world, Commercial Modular. For the sake of simplicity, the commercial side of the industry has both mobile (as in mobile offices and other portable structures intended to be moved multiple times during their lifetime) and modular buildings (as in sections that are put together on a permanent foundation for long term use such as Swedish Edmonds Medical Oncology Clinic). Commercial modular can be anything from offices, retail, medical, telecom, educational, healthcare, hospitality, industrial, military, or even hotel and apartment buildings. The configurations are as vast as any architect can envision. From the Hilton on the Riverwalk in San Antonio to a school near you, commercial modular can provide quality construction, faster and usually less expensive than can be provided using traditional construction.
Full disclosure, I once worked as a general manager under the owner of Whitley Evergreen, Simon Dragan, when he was the VP of Manufacturing for Williams Scotsman back in the 1990s.
Whitley Manufacturing is based in South Whitley, Indiana with plants in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. It was a quick Yes when I asked permission to visit their Whitley Evergreen plant in Marysville, Washington. Known as one of the most difficult states to operate a commercial modular manufacturing facility, I was always interested in how they juggled the intense approval and inspection process Washington requires. Most states require a third-party inspection and approval firm to oversee a modular plant and they have a process to ensure the manufacturer follows the state’s quality and code compliance. To do that, inspectors will check each process in production on a periodic basis, but not all processes on each building. The goal is to ensure the manufacturer has a system that assures construction requirements, quality control, and code are followed, not just the plans for each building. In Washington, it is different. Every phase of every project must be inspected, just like on-site. That can cause disruptions to production flow, so Whitley Evergreen’s process is different, with more space and more moving of people than following a production line. Still, the Whitley Evergreen location has been doing it since 1999.
My host for the day was Hank Kennedy, who has years of experience in commercial modular manufacturing. The facility is large and somewhat disjointed, part of that Washington difference I mentioned. Like all modular facilities I have seen, some of Whitley Evergreen is a traditional production line. Still, there are separate areas where entire multiunit buildings are semi-assembled and in different stages of completion due to pending inspections. For the most part, once the process is done the buildings are finished and made ready to ship to a location in Washington or as far away as Arizona.
Swedish Edmonds Medical Oncology Clinic is a classic example of commercial modular applications for medical facilities: functional, esthetically pleasing, and quick to put in service using concurrent construction, allowing manufacturing of the build components to coincide with sitework, reducing construction time as much as 40%. Specifically in this case, the first floor of the new facility features reception, registration, waiting, medical oncology clinic, and various staff and support offices. The second floor accommodates 20 infusion bays and the pharmacy. Perkins + Will’s exterior design fulfills the goal of “simple, elegant, and complimentary in scale and materials with the surrounding campus context.” The building includes many sustainable features, such as a high-performance glazing system and Swisspearl rain screen exterior cladding. And, all of this was accomplished quickly and efficiently.
Commercial modular follows the traditional architect-driven construction that commercial building of any construction uses, unlike manufactured housing that uses a retail outlet approach. While some commercial modular buildings are large and still designed for short term use, the benefits of concurrent construction give commercial modular an advantage when speed is needed to meet deadlines. I can see why architects and developers are investigating how commercial modular can integrate into their projects, either as a complete or partial solution to best use the modular concurrent construction advantage.
When the tour was done, I realized that I missed being part of the manufacturing process just a little and thought about the good old days. Not enough to go back, but as any manufacturing person can attest, it gets in your blood. Whitley Evergreen was a chance to go back and see how my industry had evolved. They did not disappoint.
For more information about commercial modular, visit the Modular Building Institute (MBI), the commercial modular trade association at www.modular.org, and check out their annual trade show, World of Modular, scheduled for April 25–28, 2022, in San Antonio, Texas. Check out Whitley Manufacturing to learn more about their commercial modular products, locations, and services.